


Perfect Christmas Gift for Cas

by babybluecas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel in the Bunker, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Crack, Gen, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, POV Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 23:03:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5516522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybluecas/pseuds/babybluecas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Cas's first Christmas in the Bunker. Dean roasts a turkey, Sam bakes a pie and Cas gets a long due, perfect Christmas gift.<br/>There might be some misunderstandings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfect Christmas Gift for Cas

Cas steps into the kitchen wrapping the blanket tighter around his shoulders. The gray cloth does not influence his perceived temperature at all and is rather inconvenient to walk around in, keeping it from slipping, but it was Dean who draped it around him with a worried expression on his face when he and Sam were leaving, so he isn’t taking it off. True, it was days ago and it’s slowly beginning to give off an unpleasant odour, but Dean seems to appreciate the sentiment, judging by the smirk appearing on his face every time he sizes Cas up.

The room is filled with swirling chemical compounds from the turkey roasting in the oven, the grease it is lying in and the seasoning, that is in addition to the regular bunker smells, which as a whole makes an overwhelming mixture that Cas’s angelic senses perceive so extremely that if Cas was a human, the nausea would make him hurl. He will not say it aloud, of course, in fear of hurting Dean’s feelings, even though that is not at all the fault of Dean’s culinary talent.

Dean’s got his back to Cas and does not turn as Cas walks in. His attention’s focused solely on the roast behind the oven window and the glass of yellow cream in his hand. Dean takes a slow sip.

“I don’t get why you’re so bent on this Christmas thing,” he says to Sam, whom Cas just now notices, sitting by the table and chopping vegetables into uneven pieces.

Sam looks alright. His back is a little hunched over the tabletop, but his movements are fluid and his face expresses no signs of ache. However, Cas knows that Sam and Dean, throughout the years of inconceivable suffering, have conditioned themselves to endure the agony in silence. Something as insignificant as a spine injury would not be revealed by spasmodic contractions of the muscles of Sam’s face.

“Are you alright, Sam?” Cas asks. When Sam looks up at him, there is a furrow in his brow, his head is tilted to the side. “Why are you bent? Is your back hurt? I can help you with that,” he offers, curling the corners of his lips into a gentle smile.

He shifts closer to Sam with his palm reaching out towards his forehead, his energy gathering at the tips of his vessel’s fingers. The snort coming from Dean stops him in his tracks, but the man does not follow up on that with a comment or even a glance. His hands rise up to his chest where they cross.

“It’s not- That’s not what Dean meant,” Sam explains, putting the knife down. He straightens up to support his words. “I’m fine, Cas. My back is fine.”

Cas lets his hand down. “Oh, okay,” he mutters, readjusting his blanket. “But if you ever need me to-”

“Sure, Cas.”

There is silence after that. Well, it’s not silence, since there are still the voices of angels echoing in his head and the sounds from miles away mixed with the hum of the pipes and air vents in the bunker. And then there are also Dean’s and Sam’s heartbeats and their breaths and the annoying slurping of their empty stomachs.

But there are no words coming out of their mouths. Dean keeps staring at the turkey and Cas starts wondering if the a dead bird in an oven really requires so much attention. Sam walks over to the counter and pours the chopped food into a bowl and stirs it with a wooden spoon, adding another rhythmless tone into the cacophony.

Cas’s eyes shift between the two men, both of whom are now turned away from him. Dean’s foot begins to tap out some rhythm to a song Cas doesn’t hear. He wonders if it’s awkward, him standing there, still, with his hands in the pockets of his coat and his shoulders hunched under the blanket.

Cas clears his throat, not because he feels it being clogged or scratchy, but because he has learned that that is what humans do when they want to speak and no one pays attention to them. “Can I be of help?”

Sam wipes his water-dripping hands into a kitchen towel and pulls out a bag of flour from the cabinet, before waving his hand  in the general direction of the fridge.

“Yeah, could you get me some butter?”

Cas nods. “Of course.”

The walk to the fridge lets him change the perspective on the Winchester boys, but it hardly adds any dynamic to the picture. Except for Dean’s head that darts up to the ingredients assembled on the counter before Sam and his eyes widen, lips part.

“You’re making a pie?” he asks with a cautious excitement that makes his face look much younger. He doesn’t seem that invested in the roasting meat anymore. “Cranberry?”

Sam nods, flashes his teeth in a smile.

“I hear there’s no Christmas without cranberry pie,” he says, pouring measured quantity of flour into a bowl.

Cas remembers why he came to the fridge in the first place, which was definitely not to lower the temperature of his vessel - or the blanket’s, actually.

“I do not think the presence of a cranberry pie or the lack thereof would have any consequence on the occurrence of this holiday,” he mutters to the insides of the fridge.

He cannot locate the butter with even a thorough scan of the refrigerator’s content, which is exceptionally abundant in comparison to any other day. He decides to move around some items that might be obscuring the view. First he pushes away the carton of milk, to no avail.

“There are, in fact, numerous cultures which celebrate Christmas without cranberry pie,” he continues, moving over to the cardboard boxes on the higher shelf, containing eggs, also known as ‘the stuff he’s not allowed to touch, and definitely not  _ squeeze _ ever again.’ “Besides, even the complete lack of celebration does not negate its existence.”

At last he finds a block of butter behind an unopened carton of eggnog and pulls it out, complacent. As he contemplates how much of butter is  _ some _ and if that requires unwrapping it and tearing the block apart, Sam’s slightly raised voice diverts his attention from it.

“Yes, I’m aware the last time we had Christmas you were going to hell.” Sam’s turned away from the bowl now, with his floured palms lifted, as he’s trying to explain something to Dean. “That doesn’t mean I’m dying now. Seriously, Dean?”

Dean waves his hand at that and finishes the drink in his glass, but the tension doesn’t leave his face.

“You’ve gotta admit your excuse with Cas’s first Christmas is a bit far-fetched,” he says, like Cas is not with them in the kitchen, just a few steps away from Sam, placing untouched block of butter on the counter. “I mean, why make it such a big deal? We don’t even know where he stands on the Jesus Guy.”

This time the wave of Dean’s hand is directed at Cas, and the angel’s eyes drop to the ground automatically, making sure, just in case, that the hard surface under his feet is still the bunker’s tiled floor.

“I- I don’t stand on Jesus at all,” he explains quickly, squinting at Dean, whose lips part to resemble fish’s. “That would be extremely disrespectful. And impossible, since Jesus left this realm almost two thousand years ago.”

Dean closes his mouth and opens it a few times, before turning to Sam, whose face is now turned away from Cas.

“Is he for real right now?”

Cas must admit he is surprised he has never been asked this question until now.

“Yes, he is,” Cas answers, glad he can provide them with this valuable information. “But to the best of my knowledge no angel has heard from him since his ascension.”

For a second Cas wonders if the news of Jesus’s existence might come useful in the fight with the biggest threat they’ve faced yet, but Sam’s shaking shoulders and Dean’s palms covering his face are not the reaction he was expecting.

“Sam, please,” Dean says through his teeth, hanging his head low, “tell me Cas is fucking with me.”

Cas almost lets the blanket drop at the sudden change of topic in the direction he would never expect, especially not right from the question about Christ. He should probably take a little offence at the fact Dean didn’t ask him directly and perhaps in a bit more private circumstances, instead of using Sam as a mediator. But he’ll forgive him, just because Sam’s only reaction is a violent shaking of his head accompanied by the noises that suggest he’s either dismayed or amused and Cas suspects the latter.

Cas darts his eyes back to Dean and decides on, as Dean would say it, playing it cool.

“If you’d like me to.” He shrugs for the extra-cool effect.

Cas can feel the atmosphere shift, although its chemical or physical make-up does not change, except for the abrupt lack of sound waves coming from Sam. Dean’s head shoots up from his palms and his eyes grow wide when he stares at Cas, almost as if Cas turned into Christ himself. There’s a movement to Cas’s left, as Sam reaches for the butter and returns to making the pie, leaving Dean and Cas alone in uncomfortable silence.

Having spent almost eight years with the Winchester one is prone to learn many valuable things about the human world and the Winchesters themselves. Things like that ketchup is a vegetable, Sam considers himself a fluffy, pet rodent (which he should probably consult with a psychologist) or that according to Dean, bad men are spawned by female dogs (which, Cas can atest, is not possible). He also learned it’s usually a good idea to deflate a mistake with humor.

Cas acts quick. He jerks his thumb up and throws his head forward to accentuate the wink he sends Dean. At the last moment he remembers to spread his mouth wide. He freezes in the taken pose until the tension on Dean’s face eases and his shoulders slump.

A low, ragged chuckle escapes his mouth, but his jaw remains tense, his body shifts uncomfortably in his chair. At least he no longer looks close to hyperventilating, which Cas counts as a success. Sam’s grinding of the dough slows down.

“This face is gonna haunt my dreams,” Dean confesses, rubbing his eyes. “Please, don’t ever do it ever again.”

Cas drops his hand and his smile. “I promise.”

“Know what? That’s it,” Dean announces, erecting himself from the chair and, before Cas can question him, he walks around him to get to the door. “Watch the turkey,” he commands Sam, adds something along “I’ll just, uh” and leaves the kitchen.

It does not take him long to get what he left for and when he comes back, he’s carrying a package wrapped in red paper with a pattern of christmas trees.

“Hey, no gifts ‘til tomorrow!” Sam chimes in, scraping the dough that clung to his fingers.

“Yeah, yeah, I just thought that the sooner Cas gets his gift the better for everyone,” Dean answers, thrusting the package into Cas’s hands. “Merry Christmas.”

The gift is rectangular and relatively heavy, for a human, at least. It is a solid form and not a box, it’s thick and three of its edges are softer, where his fingers can bent in the paper. Cas’s best guess is a book, even though it seems like an unfitting choice. The library of the Men of Letter’s bunker is full of books of different sizes and weight, already. Then again different books hold different content in them, so maybe this book is one that holds content not yet present in the library.

For a moment Cas wonders if he’ll have to put his new book in the library with the rest of the books. Cas knows Dean and Sam’s books ended up there, but he’d rather keep this book close to him, since it’s a gift from Dean.

“Are you gonna unwrap it or are you gonna x-ray it first?” Dean hurries him and as Cas opens his mouth to explain to him that the x-ray would not be a sufficient method of reading ink off the paper pages, he adds: “Don’t answer that.”

With the use of his angelic powers, Cas pulls the book out of the paper without even opening it. He lets the wrapping fall down on the table. The blue cover of the book says “Dictionary of Idiomatic Expressions.” Cas’s own expression must fall blank as he reads it.

This is certainly not what Cas expected. Some ancient, occultist book of forgotten rituals would be much more fitting his tastes. Or maybe a book of tales, an interesting novel, Cas likes those. Not a book whose subtitle says “for English learners.” Obviously Cas is not that. As an angel he possesses the ability to speak all the human languages, and many non-human as well.

But he can understand Dean’s mistake, as he must have assumed Cas’s native tongue (which is hardly that, as Heaven’s not a nation and none of his vessel’s speech organs belongs to it anyway) is Enochian. Instead of pointing that out, which would be rude, Cas smiles gently.

Dean raises an eyebrow, twists his lips in a lopsided smirk. “You like it?

Cas nods. Sam however seems to have some objections.

“Really, Dean?”

“What?” Dean shrugs. “I wanted the gift to be, you know, useful.”

Cas’s smiles widens, just a bit, since he’s not allowed to smile wider anymore. It’s really thoughtful of Dean to care about the usefulness of the gift, even if his choice was failed, it’s the intentions that matter.

“Yes, thank you, Dean.” Cas shifts the dictionary into one hand to outstretch his arms and wrap them around Dean’s stiff body. “You know I appreciate every thing I get from you,” he confesses, resting his chin on Dean’s shoulder, ignoring the blank space in his head where the supposed gift list should be.

“Uh, sure,” Dean huffs raspily. “You can stop now,” he adds after another second and a half.

Obediently Cas begins to move away, nearly breaks the hug, before he remembers the most important thing. In a slight panic that overflows his mind he crashes his chest against Dean’s again and puts his right palm into works.

Three pats on Dean’s back later, Cas breaks the embrace for good and shifts back a few steps.

There’s a pause, again, in which Dean looks everywhere but at Cas. Sam avoids looking at either of them with his perfect excuse of spreading the dough in the form. Cas remembers the dictionary he’s still holding and he puts it back on the table next to the eggnog-smeared glass that Dean emptied earlier. It looks like as good a way as any get Dean’s attention back.

“Would you like more eggnog, Dean?”

It works - Dean’s emerald green eyes are again on Cas, before sliding down to the glass he’s holding. A lopsided smile appears on his face.

“Sure, why not.” Dean shrugs and Cas starts walking towards the fridge, where he remembers seeing the box. “Can’t say ‘no’ to eggnog.”

Dean’s murmured words stop Cas mid-movement with his free hand on the handle.

“Technically, you could.” He turns to Dean. He’s not sure what purpose would Dean have in talking to a mixture of alcohol and eggs, but it’s better that he’s aware it is a possibility. “However, eggnog won’t acknowledge it nor answer.”

Before Cas can finish the sentence, Dean is charging towards him with the dictionary he grabbed from the table. With one hand he rips the glass out of Cas’s grasp, with the other, he pushes the thick book against Cas’s chest, forcing Cas to hold it.

Dean’s hands are on Cas’s shoulders, pushing him through the door, while his mouth instructs Cas to “not come back until he’s read the whole thing.” Cas lets Dean remove him from the kitchen without putting up resistance, not to add to Dean’s apparent, if inexplicable, distress.

Not until he’s out the door does Cas turn to Sam and his startled expression. He lifts his shoulders, still clutching the gift to his chest, and says the only sentence that might explain what’s just happened.

“Eggnog is inanimate.”

Dean shuts the kitchen door right in front of Cas’s face.


End file.
